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House releases $36.2B budget blueprint

State House News Service

Posted:
04/09/2014 01:31:14 PM EDT

BOSTON -- With special attention paid to fighting drug addiction and improving the performance of the embattled Department of Children and Families, House leaders on Wednesday will present a $36.2 billion annual budget proposal that also features scores of spending cuts.

The budget blueprint for the fiscal year that starts July 1 increases spending by 5 percent over last year, but falls about $191 million short of what Gov. Deval Patrick proposed in January after House Speaker Robert DeLeo made clear he would not pursue new taxes and nixed proposals to tax the sale of candy and soda or expand the bottle bill in the budget. House leaders say Patrick's fiscal 2015 budget increased spending by 5.3 percent.

The House Ways and Means Committee released the bill Wednesday, and lawmakers have until Friday to review it and propose amendments in advance of the House's annual budget debate scheduled to begin on April 28. The Senate plans to unveil and process its own budget proposal in May.

While the budget reflects the agreement reached early with the Senate to increase local aid for public schools by $100 million and boost unrestricted aid by $25 million over last year, officials said additional increased funding was targeted for regional school transportation, special education, charter schools, and local libraries.

"It shows our partnership that we feel we have with our cities and towns," DeLeo told the News Service during an interview in his office.

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Despite surging state revenues - collections are running $631 million above original fiscal 2014 estimates - House Ways and Means Chairman Brian Dempsey said cost drivers like reimbursement rates for human-service workers, a commitment to increased transportation investments of $141 million and the decisions to accelerate funding by $163 million for the liability-plagued state pension system ate up large chunks of new resources. House officials identified $203 million in costs associated with implementing a 2008 health-care law governing reimbursement rates for human and social services, including long-term care services for developmentally disabled adults.

"While we are growing our revenues, we're also trying to be prudent in our use of that growth," said Dempsey, noting that the proposal uses $140 million in reserves and cuts in half to $260 million the amount of one-time revenues used to balance the budget. Patrick used $175 million from the rainy day fund and $334 million in one-time revenues sources. In both cases, those numbers are down significantly from recent years, and would leave the rainy day fund with $1.2 billion, one of a handful of states with stabilization funds exceeding $1 billion.

The MassHealth program accounts for more than a third of total spending in the budget. The $13.5 billion appropriation provides funding for 345,000 individuals newly eligible for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

Dempsey's budget proposal also significantly makes $339 million in cuts to "maintenance spending," the details of which will become clearer later Wednesday when the full budget document is released and scrutinized.

After a late morning committee vote on the bill, Rep. Viriato deMacedo, the ranking Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, said he was withholding judgment until he had more time to review the document. The Plymouth Republican said he was briefed just about 30 minutes before the committee vote, and the five Republicans on the committee present for the vote reserve their rights.

"Obviously some of the issues that I think are very important are the realities of addressing the issue of substance abuse. I think we all bipartisanly agree we have to spend more resources in that area. It's an epidemic, so we agree with that," deMacedo said. He also said he was glad to see no new taxes and a smaller bottom line that the governor's budget proposal.

With increased attention being paid to the rising epidemic of opioid abuse, DeLeo said the House budget would increase funding for the First Responder program to help communities with higher overdoes rates to equip paramedics and others with Narcan, which can reverse the effects of an overdose.

Gov. Patrick's effort to ban the prescribing of a new powerful painkiller Zohydro has been challenged in court and was looked upon unfavorably Tuesday by a federal judge, but the House budget also zeroes in on prescription drugs. According to summary, it proposes to allow the commissioner of public health to limit the distribution of certain prescription opioids that lack certain abuse deterrent qualities consistent with federal law.

The Ways and Means budget would also increase the maximum prison sentence for trafficking heroin from 20 years to 30 years, pilot new drug diversion programs, and add 64 treatment beds to reduce the number of addicts diverted to correctional facilities.

A $2.7 million investment in specialty courts will enable the Trial Court to fund five drug courts, two mental health courts and one veterans' court, according to House officials. Gov. Patrick also included the investment in specialty courts. Trial Court Administrator Harry Spence hopes to double specialty courts to 50 over the next three years.

The budget also again rejects Patrick's proposal to close Taunton State Hospital, providing enough funding to keep it open with 45 beds. Patrick has argued that the money would be better spent in community-based settings after shifting patients to a new hospital in Worcester.

To address lapses at the Department of Children and Families that most notably contributed to the disappearance of a five-year-old boy in Fitchburg, DeLeo said his budget committed the resources necessary to hire 100 new employees to keep caseloads to 15 per case worker with no more than 28 children under their supervision.

The budget recommends a new licensing requirement for DCF social workers and adopts recommendations made by the Inspector General and others strengthening background checks of social workers and hiring medical officers at each regional office to ensure that children receive medical screenings within 72 hours.

With roughly $68 million in increased spending on higher education, Dempsey said the House budget beats Gov. Patrick's proposal by $3 million in funding for the University of Massachusetts, which he said should be enough to freeze tuition and fees for the second straight year. DeLeo and Dempsey both said they were working with state and community college leaders to similarly freeze tuition and fees rates, but DeLeo said their success could be "uneven" across all three systems.

The House is also proposing a $7.5 million increase in spending on early childhood education and care that leaders say will reduce the waiting list for services by adding 1,250 new child care slots. The investment is about half of what Patrick proposed spending, which the governor said would add 1,700 seats. Early Education and Care Commissioner Tom Weber said in January that the state had a waiting list of 25,000 infants, toddlers and pre-schoolers under 5.

Calling the ongoing problem of homeless "challenging" and "frustration," Dempsey said the budget proposal would increase funding for rental vouchers by $3 million boosting the total investment to create 1,200 new vouchers while preserving this year's shelter expansion.

Now that the Gaming Commission has awarded a license to Penn National for a slot parlor at Plainridge Racecourse, the Ways and Means budget assumes $20 million in revenues from the last quarter of fiscal 2015 from gambling activity at the facility, as well as $53 million in licensing fees from at least two casino licenses that could be awarded later this year.

Though the Gaming Commission has slowed down the licensing process for an eastern Massachusetts casino as it considers Boston's request to be treated as a host community for the proposed casino in Revere, Dempsey said the state should be able to backfill any revenues that don't immediately materialize from the general fund.

The governor's budget assumed similar new revenue from gaming activities.

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